Muslim Excused for Raping in AU as Muslims do not Recognise Women as Humans

Bit by bit, Western nations are adopting Muslim legal standards on blasphemy and on the treatment of women.The excuses are manifold. Racism, cultural differences, Islamophobia, relativism… but it all ends the same way, with Western writers, artists and thinkers being censored and Western women being subject to Taliban treatment.This is how it began.

An Afghan refugee would drive from his home in Tullamarine to nightclubs in Frankston late at night searching for drunk, vulnerable young woman to prey on, a court was told today.He would pick them up in his white 1988 Honda Civic and rape them.The victim was sitting on the footpath behind the 21st Century Dance Club when Esmatullah Sharifi approached her and offered to give her a lift to the Bay Hotel.She accepted but became anxious and confused when they had been driving for an hour and she saw a road sign saying Sorrento.Sharifi then pulled over into a dark side street and raped her in the front passenger seat.“She began to scream and cry out for help,” Ms Dalziel said.

“The accused put his left hand over her mouth and his right hand around her neck, restricting her breathing. He said to her, ‘I’ll take you home after it, I’ll give you back your phone as well’.

In the rapist’s defense, his lawyer argued that he wasn’t at all clear about this whole “Women are human beings” thing.

Mr Regan said Esmatullah Sharifi was uneducated, illiterate, inexperienced in forming relationships with women, and was confused about the nature of consent. He is in Australia on a permanent protected visa.

The judge didn’t buy it then, but the usual lefty approach is to just keep appealing until you find a bleeding heart judge who accepts the horrible notion being put forward. And that didn’t take very long.

Granting leave to appeal, Court of Appeal Justice Robert Redlich said: “The sentencing judge rejected any suggestion (Esmatullah Sharifi) didn’t have a clear concept of consent in sexual relations.”In April last year, a psychologist told the County Court that Sharifi had “an unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships” in Australia.“It proves, in my view, an adequate basis for most grounds of appeal that (Sharifi) wishes to pursue,” the judge said.

We’re not just dealing with ignorance of the law. We have Western judges setting out the notion that if a Muslim settler in Europe, America or Australia does not understand the concept that women can refuse sexual contact, that this is a mitigating circumstance.

Ms Dalziel said Esmatullah Sharifi claimed he did not have a great understanding of sexual mores in Australia but Judge Mark Dean disagreed.“These are acts of violence,” the judge said. “Serious acts of violence against women, nothing to do with sexual mores. They’re brutal acts of violence.”

But they do. In Muslim sexual mores, serious acts of violence being committed against women are not a problem because the women do not belong to themselves. They belong to their family.Islam does not recognize the same concept of individual rights as civilized jurisprudence does. Furthermore Muslims from tribal societies like Afghanistan bring those same tribal attitudes along.As Australian columnist Andrew Bolt says, quite rightly,

If Afghan men have a culture which leaves them more likely to rape, and our courts have a culture of being more lenient as a consequence, I suggest Australian women have an interest in stopping the boats until we get this sorted out:

And that doesn’t just go only for Australia. Stop the boats. Stop the planes. Stop the trains.The left cannot have it both ways.Either Esmatullah Sharifi is responsible for his own actions. Or he isn’t. Either rape is cultural or it’s individual. Either Esmatullah Sharifi should be hit with the full force of the law or the Afghan culture of rape represents a threat to non-Muslim countries.They can only pick one.Australian Judge Finds Muslim ?Cultural Differences? Valid Excuse for Rape | FrontPage Magazine

I should be wary about reading this sort of source material without understanding its agenda. Basically, this comes from a deliberately provocative ideologically Right Wing site, whose agenda is to oppose what it regards as Liberal tendencies in society. In this instance it regards attempts to take account of "multi-cultural" differences as a Liberally-inspired departure from values it wants to uphold. You may or may not agree with that premise - but it's still important to understand the rationale behind the article, It isn't primarily about rape - it is primarily about the site's own views, which heavily influence its opinions about Muslims in Western society. Horror over rape is being exploited here as a way of pressing the site's wider political viewpoint For example the provocative quote in the middle of the article: "In the rapist’s defense, his lawyer argued that he wasn’t at all clear about this whole “Women are human beings” thing."
does not come from the lawyer or the court - it's editorial comment by the site, and appears heavily sensationalized (What the lawyer actually said follows - but the site's highly exaggerated commentary has already created a very hostile misrepresentation of what he said).
Also the headline is misleading. The accused wasn't excused by the court. The cultural difference was only introduced by a defence lawyer trying to make a mitigating case (which is his job in any free legal system) - and it he didn't make it in the sensationalized way the headline implies.
The conclusion to the article, with comments like "Stop the boats. Stop the planes. Stop the trains" also implies a willingness to exploit a more general dislike of immigration and cultural mingling.

None of this implies that rape and violence - from any source - is not an extremely serious matter, which requires legal protection - but the whole tone of this article needs to be seen in the political context it stems from.

It still absolutely shocks and sickens me to see how culturally accepted rape is in other countries. The idea that women are still considered 'property' to anybody is absolutely disgusting. It boggles my mind how attitudes like this fester over time, and are therefore deemed appropriate in other cultures. These women who are raped, sexually assaulted and viewed as 'property' will probably never have any sense of independence or self-worth because of their cultural norms.

I don't think the verdict is in yet, which is why it was not mentioned there. And accepting that as an excuse doesn't mean he'd be free from jail, although he could. At the same time, the Judge could send him to a mad house, or order him to receive psychology training or something like that in lieu of/together with jail time.

I think asking him to be raped in prisons is actually a rather tacky and hypocritical thing to suggest. Is by chance allowing people to be raped in prisons a cultural norm in America?

And I should think even crossing the road when the red light's on shouldn't be excused. Ignorance was never a defense in the judicial system, only when it involves religions it becomes one, and it shouldn't be that way.

It still absolutely shocks and sickens me to see how culturally accepted rape is in other countries. The idea that women are still considered 'property' to anybody is absolutely disgusting. It boggles my mind how attitudes like this fester over time, and are therefore deemed appropriate in other cultures. These women who are raped, sexually assaulted and viewed as 'property' will probably never have any sense of independence or self-worth because of their cultural norms.

ITA. When "culture" supersedes morality, yikes. Using culture to rationalize immoral behavior is ridiculous. In addition to these heavy-handed Muslim countries, I would add India as another country women should not be a tourist. Sadly, there is no world outrage for this but there is for lesser things.

I think asking him to be raped in prisons is actually a rather tacky and hypocritical thing to suggest. Is by chance allowing people to be raped in prisons a cultural norm in America?

And I should think even crossing the road when the red light's on shouldn't be excused. Ignorance was never a defense in the judicial system, only when it involves religions it becomes one, and it shouldn't be that way.

The idea of even suggesting he be raped in prison is so completely repugnant (and an ultimate shame upon him) that it made my point about the fact that people, regardless of how "evolved" we think we are, still view women differently.
The fact that the conversation is being had at all is the assault!!

Of course I was not intending he be raped in prison, but the kneejerk reaction to the very idea should be the same for a man or woman. And it is not!

I'd also like to add that this is most definitely not a Muslim-exclusive problem. The highly religious Christians in the deep heart of the Republic party had come out to say a good few things about rape last year.

Moving away from the article to a more general point - rape conviction rates have generally been low, and this has been an issue of particular concern, both to women's advocacy groups, the police, and judicial reformers. There are many reasons why the conviction rate is low - delay in reporting the crime, a natural reaction to wash away forensic evidence, unwillingness to go over the details or be publicly identified as a victim, fear of an intimidating and apparently unsympathetic investigation, etc. But one of the reasons stems from the judicial system's need to uphold the presumption of innocence. It's a long standing principle of English common law (which many other countries have inherited or adopted) that "actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea", which roughly means that "there cannot be a guilty act without a guilty mind". Courts have tended to interpret this to mean that the accused can't be convicted of rape, unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that he believed the victim was not consenting. This opens the possibility that the defence will argue that the victim's prior activities, behaviour or degree of intimacy led the accused to believe she was consenting, or to suggest that she had in effect consented, but reported it as a crime only on later reflection. These allegations can be dreadfully upsetting to the victim in court - but juries do often give them credence and refuse to convict on the benefit of the doubt. Hence this issue goes further than a religious or cultural example - it involves a particularly difficult legal situation in which there may often be no corroboration available from witnesses or forensic evidence, and where the verdict depends on a judge's direction as to the significance of arguments, or a jury's interpretation of two conflicting verbal accounts.

That's an assumption, not borne out by anything reliably quoted in the article. The key sentence in the actual grounds for allowing an appeal is the second judge saying [i]"The sentencing judge rejected any suggestion (Esmatullah Sharifi) didn’t have a clear concept of consent in sexual relations.” - followed by the opinion of a psychiatrist that he had "an unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships”

Both those sentences indicate that the appeal hearing would proceed on the basis that the defendant was confused over what constituted consent not that he didn't think women needed to consent at all. That impression has been created by the website, which brings in its own assumptions about "not being seen as human" - a sensationalized account which reflects the website's standpoint, not the court's.
As for the defendant, we don't not what he thought - but in much of rural Afghanistan, young women have virtually no contact with men outside their family circle, and getting into a car with an unknown man would be likely to be seen by someone raised in that environment in a totally different light from the way Australians may interpret accepting a lift home at night. As the article suggests the man may have a prior record or be a suspect in other cases, that defence might be flimsy in his case, especially if he's had contact with Australian society for some time - but I don't find it unreasonable that the court should at least examine the psychological background and level of understanding

I don't normally post on this site but after the reading the thread title i thought i should say something.
I am a Muslim and as far as i know Women are not seen as "possessions" in Islam. Rape is rape and there are no loopholes :\
It was just really offensive reading the thread title. It maybe in afghan culture that women are not seen as humans, but true Muslims hold all women in a position of high regard.
I just wanted to let you all know that not all muslim communities are like this.
That is all.

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